You Can Have Effective Web
Copy—and Keep Your Passion, Integrity, and Connection to
Spirit

Do
you want a web site that draws to you a steady stream of the people who
really need your services? And do you simply need your copy to reflect who you really are, feel
right, inspired, and aligned with your deepest values?

Well, if the above seems impossible, there's good
news: most of what you know about marketing is probably untrue, and in
today's market, the best marketing is the truest. (And if the above seems completely unsurprising, please skip ahead to My Process or Vision Statements.)

THREE COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS MOST HOLISTIC
PEOPLE HAVE ABOUT MARKETING

There are
many common misconceptions most “holistic folks”
share about web copy and about marketing for success that tend to turn
them off or scare them from the start. I myself used to think this way,
and I didn't know anything about marketing except what I'd inferred
from seeing icky ads for things I didn't want all around me. As I've
learned the truth, I've realized that there are honest ways of
marketing, especially because of the great change in communications
that has occurred recently: the internet. There are now many
alternative strategies, and most holistic healers are missing out on
these because of an information gap between them and the people who do
marketing.
Here are three common misconceptions:

#1:Effective
marketing has to cost a fortune.
#2: You have to pressure.
#3: You have to lie.

Misconception #1: "it will
have to cost a fortune,
and no matter how much you do it will only be a drop in the bucket and
bring you a trickle of inquiries. You need to saturate the world with
advertisements in order to have any effect. Your ads’ content
doesn’t matter; only the quantity of ads placed, and the
amount of money spent placing them; you’d need to purchase a
spamming database and do a mass mailing in order to get any visitors to
your web site.”

Truth: Alternative,
no-pressure marketing can be inexpensive. The content of your copy is
much more important than the quantity of ads placed on the internet or
in the world. You don’t need to spam anyone; rather, you need
to make sure that those people who do look at your copy can see that
you’re worth their time and money. Clearing the channel of
communication is far better than brute force. Most of the waste occurs
in big advertising because the business's ads or business cards or web
site are filled with platitudes instead of information. You should only
do a mass mailing if you can make it a beautiful act in and of
itself—so beautiful, in fact, that you’d be willing
to do it even if it weren’t selling any product.

Rich
Harshaw’s team helped one company increase its
“lead flow” from 70 to 955 a month without spending
any extra money (www.mymbook.com)*.
The company had an unusually generous and helpful service—but
their ad said the same exact thing every other ad said:
“Moving Company, great prices, insurance.”
Harshaw’s team wrote a brilliant ad that told the real story
of the company’s service, and that’s what made the
difference.

Misconception #2: You have to
pressure.
“Most visitors to your site won’t end up buying
from you anyway. If you want to be financially successful,
you’d to pressure your customer in order to get them to buy
from you. You’d have to be like those slick used-car
salesmen, and lie and fast-talk your prospect into making a purchase,
and you’d never want to do that so you’ll be
satisfied with not doing much business and not making enough money to
do your work full time.”

Truth: You don’t
have to pressure anyone. Pressuring a prospect for a service like
holistic healing is counter-productive. People who are looking for
holistic healing tend to make their decisions based on their gut
feeling, their heart, and convincing evidence-based information. The
relationship is the most important thing. Pressuring people sets up a
bad relationship from the start, so don’t do it.

Misconception #3: You have to
lie.
“To be really persuasive and make lots of cash,
you’d have to make false claims.”

Truth: Obviously, lying about
your services would be counterproductive also. It will build a bad
relationship. What you need to do is to tell the full impact your
services are able to have if you want people to make the investment.
It’s necessary to dodge the demons that say your gifts
aren’t worth that much—and doing the work of
writing together with another person who wants you to succeed makes
this much easier. Then it’s also necessary to spark the
person’s imagination, by speaking from your personal
knowledge, and by describing in detail the exact nature of the service
so she or he has a sensory picture in her/his head. The reader should
breathe a deep breath because your description is so vivid that her
body itself responds and says, “Yes, finally, someone who
understands!” The words on your website can be so vivid that
they act on the reader’s energy field like an acupuncture
treatment. The effect continues to adjust his energy field for 72 hours
after the needles have been removed. Artful words can do this.

Stories
always stick with us. They come back to mind later automatically when
we're talking with someone else and so we pass them on. This is
natural. I remember
an informational interview with the director of education at the Beczak
environmental educational center here in Yonkers where I live. She told
me she had started out for many years saving wetlands on Long Island,
and was very successful and managed to preserve a large acreage there.
Yet, even after years of her working there, the public still had no
idea what she was doing or why. They were unaware of the impact their
own day-to-day actions had on the environment around them. She deeply
wanted people to be informed and aware, and so she switched to
environmental education. Now she’s been working for five
years at Bezcak, and feels she has begun more truly making difference.
I heard this from a real scientist, a person who counts and measures
species and toxins, a person who is at home in talking about the fauna
and chemical constituents of the Hudson—yet what really
matters to her most is still is related to people. I was truly
surprised, and felt a sense of relief also at another sign that the
grim work of saving the environment could have a human dimension. I
will never forget that story. Or my first clients’ desire for
people to see the magic in their own lives. What are your stories? What
is a story you could tell about your work that would stay with your
reader forever? What are the stories that will stay with you forever?

MY
PROCESS

First I
interview my clients, usually for at least an hour and a half. I ask
you to tell me your passion—what it is exactly that you most
want to offer to the world, and who your ideal clients are. Not just
the ones who pay well—the ones who feed your spirit to work
with, the ones who really need what you have to offer.

Next
I’ll ask some more practical questions. Your
clients’ needs, their values, what evidence they need to feel
they’re making the right choice in doing business with
someone. These are not only essential for marketing, but open up
opportunities for you to reflect on your gifts and your challenges.
It’s often helpful to have a second person near to help one
focus on things that are up close every day and that one tends to begin
to take for granted. Maybe you’re always stuck in the
thought, “I don’t know where to begin,”
but in reality you need a chance to remember that you already have a
few web sites that inspire you that you’ve been meaning to
check out. You have that information in your head; all you need is a
mechanism for accessing it—a mirror. I’ll be your
mirror.

Then,
I’ll toot your horn. If you’re like a lot of
people, you undervalue your work because you’re afraid of
doing this. Who can see your worth more objectively than you can? The
answer is anyone else. Especially if they’re paying
attention. You don’t like to toot your own horn—so
I’ll toot it for you. I’ll help you talk about your
service in the way that inspired you to master it in the first place.
(There is even the option that this can take the form of copy on your
site that says, “I’m Joshua Myrvaagnes, and
so-and-so asked me to write web copy for her coaching business. Let me
tell you something inspiring about so-and-so.”) If you have a
really good friend who can reflect back to you the real value of your
gifts, you can ask that friend to do this. And I hope you’ll
reward that person handsomely. It’s an invaluable service. I
believe I have a special calling for being the kind of mirror that can
let people really see their gifts.

And I
myself get help when I need my horn tooted. I didn’t write
this site alone. I owe thanks to my housemates Lynne Goodman and Marcie
Boyd for looking over copy, and I've asked Tad Hargrave
(www.TadHargrave.com), green marketing expert and someone I admire
deeply and trust with my baby, for constant support and advice. He's
been miraculous and changed my life in the process.

STEP 2:
I’ll come back at you with a draft--and we’ll work
collaboratively as you care to (I hope you’ll be very
involved throughout because this is your web site we’re
trying to build). If you take me up on my offer of writing coaching
(services) then you'll do the writing and I'll simply be on call and
there for regular check-ins.

Either
way, I won't make you not be yourself. The only thing I won’t
let you do is sell yourself short. I’ll suggest, but
won’t force on you, some extra ingredients that will make
your copy effective strategy-wise. And I’ll continually steer
you toward specificity—unique, specific ads are what
I’m after. Poets and marketers agree on one thing: living
language is essential. Left alone, we humans tend to be vague; but with
a writing coach or a sounding board, we begin to see where we've left
out specifics, things we've thought but not yet had the nerve to put in
writing.

The whole
process should take one to three weeks, depending on how much time you
have to devote to it. Of course, if you're more comfortable working
more slowly, we can work that out also. It's equally important for you
to be happy with your text and feel it fits you as for it to be
strategically strong, and only you can tell me if it fits.

In six
months, I’ll contact you to check on how (and whether) my
work has helped your business and your happiness in your work.

VISION STATEMENTS

Conventional wisdom says to put your portfolio on your web site so
everyone can see it. Sometimes, however, one's best work is so precious it must be kept confidential.

It is also something that came about in an unexpected way. When I
first worked with William (not his real name) as a client, I had
already known him for some time from a spiritual support network I
belong to. We had talked on the phone many times, and the thought
of his being my client had never crossed my mind. But today
as we were talking he began telling me about a vision he had that he
wanted to bring about. I was riveted.

Because he does not want anything about this vision shared, and because
I respect my clients wishes, I can’t tell you one word about
it. But I can say that it’s something he would risk his
life for, and something that I would too. It's so powerful it is
actually worth more to him than safety. I truly feltl a sense of
hope and peace as I heard about it.

I said to him, “You know, I could help you write that into a
vision statement that you could use in fundraising. It’s an
absolutely awesome vision, and it’s so important that somebody do
that, especially at this time, and it would be the easiest thing in the
world for me to help you get that into words.” I was
excited, and energy was surging through my belly.

“Yeah, well I know you write web copy, I was thinking of asking you about that. How much do you charge?”

“Oh, you mean as part of my business? I hadn't thought of
that. I was saying that just as a friend, but sure, I guess
it’s a good idea. I wouldn’t charge you for it,
it’s experimental. But I’m sure I can do it for you,
no problem.” I just knew it was exactly the thing I’m
best at, and that’s most natural for me. He was doing the
hard part—having a specific, concrete vision and the passion to
make it in the world; I got to just “eat the dessert” and
help tell the story of it. (He ended up sending me a check for a
nominal but significant amount, so that I could say I'd been paid for
that job, which I appreciated.)

The way we worked, I wrote up a statement of what I remembered just
from our conversation, and he wrote a version, and I mostly asked
questions and reaffirmed how powerful I felt certain parts of the
vision were. I kept reaffirming this again and again as doubts
crept up or the “editing monsters” tried to convince him to
change the words to something tamer.

He still needs this vision to be kept private, but some day when
it’s a reality I hope you who are reading this will get to see
it, and feel the impact it will have on our world. I can say that
it is something he's willing to risk liiving in a war-torn country for,
and gladly.

That’s how my visioning business got started. I remembered
also that I’d done exactly the same process, but on the other
end, with my shamanic community, when the Visioning Committee had asked
each of us individually to share what we saw for the futrure of our
“village”. Telling my vision to Jeffrey, and having
it be deeply heard, the same powerful energy flowed through my belly.
I just knew I was in the presence of something as vital as
food. And then hearing Jeffrey echo my own vision back to me was
astonishing—it was such a powerful vision he was talking about,
and he was so eloquent. Had I just said that?? It was revelatory.

So I knew this was important work, and I knew what a powerful effect it
could have on the person having the vision. And I want to offer
it to you.

And since I can’t reveal William’s vision without violating
the trust I hold sacred with my clients, I’ll share a little of
my own vision instead:

My
vision at this time is to co-create ads with other inspired people,
texts that articulate what’s uniquely valuable about their
products; that I help them write their ideal vision as well as what is
good in what they’re presently offering; and that I support them
in further unlocking their creativity through other means. I help
people to get what they need to carry out their life purposes,
“to have fun, serve the world unselfishly and make a
profit” (Victor Baranco).

And
this is not the end of the vision. This is just what the vision
is today. A vision is an ever-evolving thing, and the dance
between myself and Spirit is always changing. One day it may
embrace the world. That source from which the visions come has
infinite size, so the visions it sends us can always grow bigger over
time.

If I work with you to create a Vision Statement, I
will ask you questions, I will listen, and I will echo back to you what
I hear. I have the utmost respect for every individual's
unique voice, and that is the thing I love more than anything else in
life. We can create a document of one or two pages, which can be
excerpted for differnt occasions,. Or a one-sentence version.
This can be used publicly, in fundraising or advertising, or
privately, as a "mantra" as they say, to help you keep focussed on what
makes your heart sing. Having it in writing in front of you by
your desk can help you maintain confidence in it. For many
people, tangible written words tell the psyche that the thing is
real.

Thank you for letting me share my vision, and may your visions come into this world as well.